Obama to Address Congress Tonight at 9pm

Posted February 24, 2009, 7:20 p.m.

President Barack Obama (D) is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress tonight 9pm EST. This is not an official Presidential State of the Union address, as new Presidents traditionally give their first State of the Union address after having served nearly a year in office. Traditionally, this initial address is referred to as an ‘annual message’ or other similar, generic title. Obama’s address will be followed by a Republican response to be given by Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA).

As always, I recommend watching C-SPAN for unfettered, uninterrupted coverage of both.

The Constitution requires that the president report to Congress annually on the state of the union, but does not specify the method or form of this report. The in-person State of the Union address has been a tradition since 1913 (transcripts 1945-2008 available from C-SPAN).

Scott Bradford has been building web sites and using them to say what he thinks since 1995, which tended to get him in trouble with power-tripping assistant principals at the time. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University, but has spent most of his career (so far) working on public- and private-sector web sites. He is not a member of any political party, and brands himself an ‘independent constitutional conservative.’ In addition to holding down a day job and blogging about challenging subjects like politics, religion, and technology, Scott is also a devout Catholic, gun-owner, bike rider, and music lover with a wife, two cats, and a dog.